Kingdom Come

You Great Ones that are not tackt or taintedyou may laugh and singwhom this hitteth it hitteth.And it shall hit home.

Gemma started researching the English Civil War with Wendy Hubbard 7 years ago, and this show is the first in a series of works on the subject.

This is bold, brilliant work. An almost orgiastic visual experience.(The Stage ****)

Gemma Brockis and Wendy Hubbard's ambitious production for the RSC unfolds like a series of old masters. A dense, playful evening that chimes with the times.(The Guardian ****)

Tom Lyall in Rehearsal for Kingdom Come

The war claimed the highest casualties per person of any conflict in English history. It was particularly brutal and, as is often the way with civil conflict, particularly strange in its brutality. The Cavaliers and Roundheads tore at each others' aesthetics. Puritans pierced Rubens' painted Christ through his chest and rode into Westminster Cathedral on horseback the better to reach the stained glass windows with their clubs. Animals were baptised. Actors whipped in the streets.

Such acts of iconoclasm were not unknown in a Europe torn by religious wars. But England took it further - the shocking peak of the war being the public beheading on Whitehall of the King - Charles Stuart, Enemy of the People.

The flagship of the British Navy was renamed ‘Liberty’ - and the Republic was born.

England.The first modern European republic.This is the story of Kingdom Come.